Secret Kisses, Secret Wishes
by katnissdoesnotfollowback
Summary: Katniss enters the Arena of the 74th Hunger Games with her best friend and hunting partner, but she's really not sure what to make of one of her mentors - the boy with the bread and victor of the 73rd Games. RATED M for canon compliant violence, angst, and sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

Due to popular demand and the grace of the muse, I've decided to expand one of my shorter pieces that I claimed I was leaving alone. It's probably a mistake, but I hope you enjoy it anyways. This will be a three-part piece. Canon divergence, based on the prompt to write a "kiss in secret." Katniss enters the Arena of the 74th Hunger Games with her best friend and hunting partner, but she's really not sure what to make of one of her mentors - the boy with the bread and victor of the 73rd Games. **WARNINGS:** RATED M, for canon equivalent mentions of violence, angst and sexual content.

* * *

"What the hell, Gale!" I shout, slamming my palms into his chest as soon as he steps off the elevator on the twelfth floor of the training center. "What kind of stunt was that? Telling everyone that you're _in love with me_?!"

He staggers back into a vase full of sickly sweet blooms. The porcelain monstrosity wobbles on its pedestal and then crashes to the floor, sending broken shards sliding across the floor. Gale ignores the mess, his eyes narrowing and his lip curling.

"Yeah, Katniss. I love you. This isn't how I planned to tell you, you know."

His biting tone only ignites the anger I've struggled to contain ever since he volunteered to take another boy's place in the arena. It isn't supposed to be this way. We had a deal. Gale is supposed to be with my family right now, taking care of them. The sickening feeling I felt after I shot that damn apple out of the pig's mouth during my training session returns ten fold. I shove him again, releasing a snarl.

"So what? You were going to tell me in the arena? That's even worse!"

"What's going on here?" Haymitch's voice sounds behind me and I whirl on him. He and the others have only just stepped off the elevator. Effie is clicking her tongue in disapproval, Portia holds her hand over her mouth, eyes wide in shock. Only Cinna gives me any kind of understanding. Except maybe _him._ But I can't bring myself to look at him just yet.

"This was your idea, wasn't it? To make me look foolish!" I yell at Haymitch. All the bastard does is raise his eyebrows as my _other_ mentor steps between us, calmly placing his hands on my upper arms and steering me away from everyone else.

His steadiness and warmth placate my frazzled nerves. I let him lead me into one of the opulent sitting rooms of our living quarters. Once inside, I pull away from him and stalk to the window.

"It was my idea, Katniss," Peeta says softly. My spine stiffens and I squeeze my eyes shut. _Not him, too_ , I think as I fight back the feelings of betrayal. But for there to be betrayal, there would have to be trust. And how could I possibly trust Peeta Mellark? I barely know him. He deceived me, used me, made me ridiculous, same as Gale and the others. Still, I allow him to continue speaking in that soothing tone of his. The one he used to calm me down and reassure me after what could have been a disastrous private training session with the Gamemakers, and after my insufferable interview training with Haymitch.

"Maybe it wasn't fair not to warn you. I apologize for that. Haymitch thought it would work better if you didn't know. Then your reaction would be genuine. If it makes you feel any better, Gale knew you'd be angry."

"He still went along with it, didn't he?" I bite out the words, almost hurting my teeth in the process.

"It wasn't meant to hurt you, Katniss. It was meant to make you appear desirable. Mysterious, intriguing. Not that you need help in that department. The audience is already leaning in favor of you, they simply want to know who you are."

"They can't have me!" I wail, knowing I must sound childish. "They've already taken everything else!"

"I know," he says. And that's the thing. He would know. "Volunteering for your sister, your showing in the parade, your training score that no one can explain just yet. All you needed was one last push. Something to help balance out the target you and Gale have managed to put on your backs.

"You two are something they've never seen before. The star-crossed lovers of District Twelve," he proclaims with sudden rancor. "They'll eat it up, assign you an identity and all you have to do is continue to surprise them. Keep them on their toes. And the sponsors will be lined up around the block."

I stare out over the city lights, still fuming, but as his words sink in, it dawns on me that he's right. Peeta is right. Tributes with the highest training score often die early in the Games. The others sometimes band together to take out the biggest threat first. And with our combined high training scores and the success of Cinna's parade costumes, we're actually favored. Which makes us a threat.

But now, no one in the Capitol audience will be able to forget me. Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire, also flaming in love with her childhood friend, the boy who came here with her. One volunteer from 12 is unheard of, but two? That has caused a frenzy amongst the reporters. I volunteered to save Prim. Even though I'm still not sure why Gale volunteered, it will be easy to spin the story to make the audience believe he volunteered to protect me.

The Capitol loves stuff like that. Last year, Peeta won them over with his charm and humor, but also with the story of a girl back home he'd always had a crush on. He'd claimed that if he won, he would finally take the chance to tell her how he felt. Only I can't recall ever seeing him with a girl in the past year since he was crowned Victor. Even Delly Cartwright seemed to be keeping her distance.

My eyes meet his in the glass, twin orbs of tormented blue. Was Peeta's tale all an act, too? Or had he just never found the courage after all? Or worse...had she rejected him? I don't know why she would. Victors are rich. Whoever she is, she and her family would never want again. Besides that, Peeta's kind and handsome, even without all the Capitol primping.

I try to find another reason to be angry. But I can't. It's all so confusing. My best friend and I are going into the arena together. At least one of us won't come out of there alive. I bite my lip and try to hold back tears. I can feel Peeta approach me from behind, warmth hovers over my shoulder, a phantom hand reflected back at me in the glass window. I lean towards the touch.

He and Cinna are the only people who've made me feel human here, justified for not celebrating my status as Tribute.

"I don't know what to do, Peeta," I whisper. The hand jerks back and he clears his throat. Without warning, the tough mentor who insisted I step up and take credit for my skills, demanded that I not give in or crumple after a rough day practicing for interviews with him and Haymitch returns.

"You stay alive, Katniss. Just like Haymitch told you to."

I find my anger and use it to finally spit out the words. "What do I do if Gale and I are the last two standing? I can't kill him."

"It probably won't come to that," he says icily. I wipe the moisture from my eyes, not caring if I've smeared Cinna's carefully applied makeup and turn to watch him leave the room. "But if it does, you know they have to have a Victor. The Games don't work without a Victor."

I swallow back bile, knowing that he's just trying to prepare me for the worst. But the worst is something I cannot stomach. Something I can't face.

"You have time to shower and change before dinner, if you like," he throws over his shoulder, and then he's gone.

I can't sleep. Strategies and possible arena landscapes whirl through my head as I try to determine my best strategy for surviving. After apologizing at dinner, Gale suggested we stick together in the arena, as if there was ever any doubt that we would. It will be better that way, the two of us working together as hunting partners. His words about how this would be no different than hunting game back in our woods pick at the edges of my brain. Still, I agreed to the plan. Anything else but allying myself with Gale is unthinkable.

I need sleep now, but it won't come. So I slip from my bed and head back up to the roof, the place Peeta showed me on our first night here, after he covered for me and Gale when I recognized the red-haired Avox. Gale had stormed off to his room and Peeta brought me here, seeking the truth of what he'd covered up so easily. Lavinia, he'd said her name was.

The wind whips over the roof and I watch him standing there, silhouetted against the city lights, his curls, clean and free of Capitol products, dance in the moonlight. I wonder what it must be like, to have survived an arena only to find you have to send someone else into it, to guide them through, knowing their chances of death are far higher than their chances of survival. No wonder Haymitch drinks. I briefly wonder how Peeta deals with it.

"Couldn't sleep?" I ask. He startles and turns to face me, wincing as the swift movement must hurt his leg, the one he lost in his Games.

For the first time, Twelve had a Career Tribute during Peeta's Games. At first, the District had been stunned. But then his plan became clear to the audience, if not the other Tributes. He manipulated the other Careers and used their might to keep both himself and the girl from Twelve alive. When the Career Alliance inevitably broke, Peeta knew what each of the survivors would do, and so he was able to keep himself alive longer. At the end, it came down to an emaciated Peeta and the giant, vicious boy from District Two. When the Gamemakers finally drove them together, the fight was brutal and bloody. Both of them sustained horrible injuries.

Peeta won because the other Tribute bled out before he did. He managed to fashion a sloppy but effective tourniquet for his leg. By the time the trumpets finally announced him as Victor, it was too late to save his limb.

Panem was astonished. No one had expected the funny, charming fifteen year old boy from District 12 to win. I certainly didn't. I search now for some sign of the boy who once threw two loaves of burned bread to a starving girl in the rain, providing her with the spark of hope that made it possible for her to not only survive, but to provide for her family.

His face softens, the cool mask of the Victor and Mentor falling away, and for a moment, I glimpse the boy who could never quite meet my eye in school.

"No," he says. "You?"

I wrap my robe tighter and look out over the city. "Did you, the night before you went in?"

"Course not. Are you thinking about your family?" I'm hit with a wall of shame mingled with anger. My fingers and toes practically burn with it.

"I was...no, it's too painful to think about them."

"I can understand that."

"Is that what you thought about? On your last night? Your family?"

"No, it wasn't," he scoffs lightly and once more faces the city lights. I pad my way over to stand beside him, lean against the railing. Maybe he's been a bit of a hard-ass on me and Gale, but I can recognize that he's just trying to help us, especially when he gifts me with these softer moments. When he's the boy with the bread again, if only just for me, for just a few stolen moments.

We stand in silence, and I'm not expecting him to expand on his denial.

"I spent my last night thinking about how I wanted to die as myself. It never occurred to me that I might actually win."

"I don't understand," I say. "How could you die as someone else?" Confusion furrows my brow.

"I didn't want to become a monster in the arena," he explains with a kind smile. "I wanted to show the Capitol that they didn't own me. That I was more than just another piece in their Games."

Fighting back my feelings of inferiority, I send my glowers out over the roofs of the city. Peeta Mellark spent what he expected to be his last nights alive worrying about his purity of self. And I've been ruminating on the availability of resources and how exactly I can let my best friend die without killing him.

"How did you do it? Not become a monster?"

"Well I'm still working on that," he answers lightly, and I finally face him, stunned by the spark of levity I find in his eyes. "I'm not proud of some of the things I did in there. But I couldn't go down without a fight either. And my _reward_ ," he sneers out the word, "Is to never stop being the piece in their Games that I never wanted to be."

He gestures between us. Us. He's talking about me. And Gale. And how Peeta now has to send us into the same nightmare he already lived. It's his first year as mentor, and Twelve rarely has Victors. Never have we had back-to-back Victors. Tomorrow I could be dead. There's something I've never said and it weighs on my chest. I think of Prim and my mother at home. Even if I win, will I go home a monster to them?

It's not a line of thought I can afford to follow, but the words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them.

"I never thanked you."

Peeta grimaces at my words. "You've got no reason to be thanking me."

"No, not for being a good mentor, although you were that, too," I stammer over the words. "I meant for the bread."

"The bread?" he asks and for a moment, I'm sure that I was right that day of the Reaping when he placed a hand on my shoulder to guide me into the train and protect me from the cameras being shoved in our faces, when I thought he didn't remember that hollow day in the rain. "You mean from when we were kids?"

My face flushes at his incredulous tone. "You didn't have to give it to me. I just...didn't want to die still owing you for it."

"Wow," Peeta says and I am about to fly off the handle at his cavalier attitude. "Katniss you don't owe me a thing."

I try to argue, to tell him that I do. That if I live through this, I will never stop owing him for saving my life. But he cuts me off.

"You still have some night left. You should try to get some sleep."

"My family," I whisper. "My sister. If I don't…"

I stare at the ground while he stares at me, following my half spoken sentence to it's logical conclusion.

"I'll make sure they're taken care of," he promises. I meet his earnest gaze and relax. I believe him. "But you have to promise me that you'll fight. That you won't give up. They need you more than anything."

"I promise," I whisper, thinking about how similar my promise to Peeta is to the one I gave to Prim.

"Then so do I. No matter what happens in the next few days, your family is taken of, alright?"

I nod and leave him on the roof. With the comforting knowledge that my family will not starve if I die, I walk back to my room and slide between the covers. Surprisingly, I manage to sleep.

It ends up being me and Gale.

We stand next to the Cornucopia as they take away the bodies of the boy from District one and the girl from District Two. Tears fill my eyes as my mind scrambles for a way out of this. I can't kill him. I can still hear the screams of the girl as my first arrow pierced her shoulder. See the look of shock on her face when the next came flying straight for her eye.

We stand there and stare, our families trapped in the air and the unspoken words between us.

And then I'm not thinking of Gale or my family, but of Peeta, up on the roof. It isn't the first time I've thought of him in here. I thought of him as I held Rue while she died.

Sweet, resourceful Rue, with whom I formed an alliance with against Gale's wishes. When she died, I thought of Peeta and his words about not being pieces in their Games. So I buried her in flowers and sang to her. You don't memorialize a token in a game.

He'd done something similar last year, when the girl from Twelve died. He'd sung a District funeral song over her body, his voice rough and untrained, but raw with emotions.

And I thought of Peeta every time I forced my lips to Gale's, to play the role of star-crossed love. It seemed to be working. There was that rule change, at least until now.

The announcement echoes in through the arena, and I know this was another Gamemaker trick. Maybe Peeta and Haymitch engineered the rule change in the first place, I don't know. But the Gamemakers never intended to let both of us live.

I remember his words about them needing a Victor. And about how we're something they've never seen. How I should just keep them guessing. I realize that I've been played. We've been played right into their scheme to orchestrate the most dramatic final showdown the Games have ever seen. They need a Victor…What if they weren't going to get one? What would they do then?

I glance down at my belt and pull out my knife, stare at the metal as it glints in the newly risen arena sunlight. Then I lift my head to look at Gale.

"Gale," I say in a choked voice. "Do you trust me?"

I turn the knife on myself and hold its point against my chest.

"Catnip, wait…"

"They need a Victor," I echo Peeta's words to him. "Or the Games don't work."

His eyes cloud with anger and I watch him work through my words. My hands shake violently and I'm afraid he won't figure it out, the gamble I am taking. But then, he pulls out his own knife and looks to me for approval as he turns it on himself, the point aimed straight for his heart.

"On three?"

I nod and he licks his lips, clearly mulling something over before he speaks.

"I love you," he says. My heart sinks. I don't want those words. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever. How can he do this to me? But I have a role to play, so I force myself to speak.

"I know," I manage, and it's the wrong thing to say. I can see it in his eyes. Like I know he can't help loving me, but that I don't love him back. I don't know if I can. Not after what we've been through. I don't know if I can love anyone. Not even in this moment right before we may both die. Gale's spine straightens and he nods, then he begins to count.

"One, two-"

"WAIT! STOP! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR VICTORS!"

Our knives drop to the clearing and Gale's arms wrap around me. I melt into his embrace.

It tears us apart, pretending to be deliriously in love. First in the Capitol and now on the tour. In public, we hold hands. We kiss and dance. Our mothers are ecstatic for us. When the cameras leave, he glowers and I turn my back on him. Unable to let myself love him. How could I? How could I open us to the possibility of a future? To the possibility of children who might be forced into the Games. He has to know any children we had would be guaranteed a spot in an arena. After the stunt we pulled, and the visit from Snow, reminding me that everyone I love is at risk unless I convince Panem of my deep, abiding love for Gale.

Nightmares plague me on our Victory Tour. One night, they are so bad, that Peeta shakes me awake. I cling to him, begging him not to leave.

"It's okay," he whispers as he holds me, strokes his hand over my back to soothe me. "I get them too. Every night."

I turn my face into his neck and breathe in his clean scent. "How do you face them?"

"I paint. Or I walk."

His paintings. That's right. I remember now that painting was his Victor talent. His work is gorgeous and hauntingly real. I try to recall some of the paintings of his that I've seen. Vivid images of his Games and of our District come to me in swift succession. And now, as a Victor myself, I can recognize the pain and fear behind the brushstrokes.

"I was walking tonight when I heard you," he releases me and shifts, stands away from my bed.

I watch him leave, wanting to call him back, but unsure how to make him stay. The next night, he shakes me awake again, and this time, when I ask him to stay, he shakes his head.

"Gale…"

"I asked you," I tell him, unwilling or unable to explain the rift forming between me and Gale. The angry words and expectations I can't seem to fulfill. All I know is that Peeta is steady and warm, and I am terrified of my dreams.

Every night after that, I let Peeta into my bed, asking him to stay with me. The nightmares still come, but he wakes me sooner, and in his arms, they don't make as many repeat appearances. His hands card through my hair as we breathe together, and I think of how he kept a long vigil his last night in the arena, his leg bleeding as he waited to die or be crowned Victor. Did he think of that girl he had a crush on to keep himself conscious? Was he fighting for her?

"Who was she?" I ask in the dark and Peeta's hand freezes. "The girl you mentioned in your interview. The one you had a crush on. Who was she?"

"It doesn't matter," Peeta whispers. "She loves someone else. They're practically engaged."

"I'm so sorry," I say as his fingers resume their caresses, pulling me back into slumber.

The square is hot and dry as we stand on the stage. Three male Victors, one female. Two of us bound for a second trip to the arena. My name is no surprise. And truthfully, I am not surprised when they call Gale's name, either.

"I volunteer as Tribute," Peeta's voice rings out clear across the square.

Gale reaches out and grabs his arm, but Peeta shrugs him off, a hard look on his face. He moves to stand next to me as my insides pitch and heave.

 _Not Peeta,_ I think as I fight my face to conceal my thoughts. I hold it together as they drag me to the train without getting to say "good-bye" to my mother and sister. I even manage to keep it together as Gale steps up and starts outlining strategies on the train. We're old hats at this by now, the four of us, since Peeta insisted we start training as soon as the Quell announcement was made.

When Gale and Haymitch finally suggest Peeta and I get some rest, I follow him to his compartment and shove my way inside before he can shut the door.

"Why?" I hiss at him.

"Isn't it obvious, Katniss? Whatever resistance you two have managed to stir up could be crushed by sending you both back into the arena. I can't keep you out of there, but I can keep him out."

He opens the door and motions for me to leave. I refuse to believe that's it. The fledgling rebellions in the District cannot be his only reason for throwing himself back into the arena.

"I won't let you die for me," I tell him on the threshold. For a moment, he looks panicked, and then his eyes narrow.

"Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart."

Then he shuts the door, leaving me feeling hollow and missing my friend. It's what he's become over the last year, as I dealt with my growing disgust with myself and what I did in the arena to the other Tributes, to Gale. I have faked this romance and pushed it so hard, I feel as though I'm hemorrhaging.

That night, the dreams revisit me, as awful as always. I leave my room, hoping maybe Peeta is awake too somewhere, so we can talk the way we did on the Victory Tour and nearly every day since. So he can hold me and tell me that what I see isn't real.

I find him in the TV room, reviewing tapes of old Games, part of his training strategy for us. He stands as soon as he sees me and says nothing, just opens his arms for me. I fall into them and release a shuddering breath as his warmth envelopes me, his lips pressing to a point on my neck. We sway with the train and he whispers an apology. I whisper one back. Without another word, I lead him to my bed.

In a week, one of us will be dead, and I no longer care if I'm supposed to share this feeling of rightness with Gale. I share it with Peeta. As we lay in the dark, managing the demons, I think of how different things might have been if it had been me and Peeta in that arena last year. Would we have found each other and held one another the same way we do now? Would we have discovered a way to trick the Gamemakers into letting us both live?

I suppose Peeta is right. It doesn't matter.

"I never told her. The girl I spoke of in my interview. When I got home, I realized pretty fast what a mess I was. A monster. And I thought she didn't deserve that. She deserved someone who wouldn't destroy her life, no matter how much money and security I came with. So I stayed away, didn't say a word."

He presses a soft kiss to my forehead as I think back on all the little touches and the kindness he's shown me since I volunteered for Prim. The careful way he's held me and yet held himself away. I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine the boy with the bread as his blue eyes flit away from mine in the school hallways. I wonder how I didn't see it sooner.

"Then I became a monster, too," I murmur. Part of me wishes it were a lie, but another part of me knows it's the truth.

I tilt my head back and meet his eyes. They appear glassy in the soft glow of the train's night lighting.

"You can't think like that," he whispers, brushing a strand of hair off my forehead. "You have to live. To fight. For your family if nothing else. They still need you."

His words recall our last night before my first Games.

"What about you?" I ask.

"Nobody needs me, Katniss." He says it as though it were a fact, cold and unchanging. No self-pity. No bitterness. Just truth. Maybe he's right. His family and friends would continue after a time of grieving. Even Haymitch could probably drink away his sorrow at losing his first Victor. But me…

I close my eyes and lean closer to him, so I can feel him breathing against my lips.

"I do," I say. "I need you."

Before he can protest, I kiss him, sealing our mouths together and swallowing his half-formed words, tasting them with my tongue. I allow myself to accept it, what's real. I've wanted to kiss him for a long time.

Eventually, he gives up on talking and shifts so he can wrap his arms around me fully, rolls so that I sprawl on his chest as unbearable heat licks its way over my skin. Instinct tells me to brace my knees on either side of him, to straddle him so that our bodies are linked as closely as possible. I tangle my fingers in his hair and feel the softness, drinking the sounds as he groans and shifts his hips so that his emerging hardness brushes against me. I gasp at the shiver of delight this causes and then his tongue is in my mouth.

Gale's never kissed me like this, I briefly think before I am consumed with the kiss and thoughts of only Peeta when my brain actually manages to settle on a thought. Otherwise I am nothing but heat and hunger, seeking his light and every small caress of his fingers over my scalp and skin. I'm expecting the feelings to taper off in satisfaction or disappointment. But they don't. I've known all kinds of hunger, but never one like this. His kisses only make me need more.

The train sways and a bell clangs loudly outside as we pass through one of the District stations at full speed.

Peeta tears his lips from mine, remorse written all over his face.

"You're engaged," he whispers. "To Gale."

He shoves me off of him and stumbles from the bed, getting caught in the sheets. He sprawls to the floor and I sit there, stunned, watching as his fingers curl into the carpet before he gingerly regains his feet.

"This was a mistake," he says, motioning to the bed. To me. "All of it. I knew it on the Victory Tour but I couldn't seem to stop myself. I just wanted a taste. One small taste of what it's like to be loved and not seen as a murderer."

I shake my head, a denial on my lips.

"No, Katniss. You don't really love me. I let it go too far. And I am so sorry."

It isn't until he's left me that I'm able to find my voice. I sit there, grasping onto the feelings of lightheaded happiness that filled me while I kissed him. But they've fled with him, leaving only a hollow of dead brush where flowers could have grown.

"Stay with me, Peeta," I croak, knowing he won't answer me this time.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes a good two minutes for what they're suggesting to sink into my brain. As soon as it does, I shake my head vigorously. "I'm not saying that."

"Come on, Katniss. Your mother will know it's a lie." As if that would be my only real objection.

"No!" I shout at Gale but my eyes are drawn to Peeta, sitting in one of the bright chartreuse armchairs, hands clenched with his forearms resting on his thighs. There's a strange tick in his jaw and a gaping chasm between us that I don't know how to breach. My next words are directed at him. "This was your idea, wasn't it?"

"Yes," he whispers. My eyes burn and bile rises in my throat as I run from the room.

"Catnip," Gale pleads. He hasn't called me that unless there's a camera around since before the last Games.

"Let him talk to her and explain," I hear Haymitch say and I know that Peeta's following me. I run to the only place I can think of that might allow me to talk freely, so long as the wind is howling like it was last night. A cold blast of wind hits me when I reach the roof, bringing me to an abrupt halt. Peeta's warmth crashes into my back. I didn't think he'd be able to catch up that quickly.

When I turn, the words die in my throat at the look of anguish in his eyes. I think I say his name and then his arms are around me. I reach up and grip his hair, holding his face buried in the crook of my neck. We've spent the past few days barely talking unless it was about training, strategies, or potential allies. He hasn't touched me since he scrambled out of my bed on the train. He's given up any pretence of being my friend. Just another Tribute in the Games who I'll have to eventually kill, despite our alliance, if I am to win and return to my family and my fiance.

But his arms feel so good around me. No one else's arms have made me feel this safe. Not since my father died.

"I'm sorry." He chants the words into my neck and tightens his arms around me.

We stand there long enough for the others to wonder what we're talking about, but I don't want to be the first to let go. Maybe if we just stay here like this, they'll put us through the tubes together. At least then I won't have to worry about finding him in the middle of a blood bath.

Eventually, Peeta slides his hands up my back to my shoulders and presses down, releasing my hold on him. He steps back away from me, his glassy eyes looking at the ground as it grows between us.

"It will gain you more sympathy. You're facing experienced killers this time. Favored Victors who know each other and whom the Capitol knows. You're still something of a mystery to them," he repeats the reasoning for us forming alliances with the other Victor Tributes, this time in defense of his proposed interview strategy. "Something like this...it invests them personally in your survival."

"But Peeta...a baby?" I croak and he nods.

"It's more than that. They don't think of us as human until after we've won. Even then, they don't realize what's happening. You know this, Katniss. Announcing a pregnancy like this...it might show them why the Games are wrong. At least start them thinking about it."

"It's a lie," I protest and he scoffs.

"We're all liars. Or hadn't you noticed? Every last Victor plays a part in some way. The person you see in the Arena...that's not real. It never is."

"Yes it is," I say and he flinches.

"Okay, would it be better if I brought it up?"

"How would you even do that?" I cross my arms and Peeta shrugs. Then his entire face changes, his eyes bright and his lopsided smile disarming, leaving me momentarily breathless

"Well Caesar, I couldn't let both my Victors go back in there. They had so little time together. Their love is so new. I just wish that I'd gotten a chance to be the crazy uncle," he says.

I gape at him. It'd work. Caesar would ask what he meant by that or if the lovebirds had some happy news to share. And there it is. Baby bomb.

The Capitol charm slips back off his face and he takes both of my hands in his. "Katniss, let me do this."

"But why?"

"Because sometimes I just get so sick of it and I can't stand it anymore," he leads me to the railing and waves over the glory of the Capitol. "Because somewhere back home, a family is living in darkness so the people who live in that building can leave their lights burning all night while they're out at a party. Because people are starving back home in Twelve while here, they're throwing it all up to stuff in more. And because in the next two weeks, at least one mother will bring a child to your mother to beg her to save it and I'm not sure it's even worth it if the child's just going to grow up and face the Reaping."

I find myself nodding at his words and then shaking myself out of the stupor. Roof or not, this isn't the place. I place my hand over his mouth as he opens it to keep talking.

"I know, Peeta. But what are we supposed to do?"

He stares at me for a moment and I can tell he's trying to make a decision.

"There you are," Gale says and Peeta steps away from me, turning his back and leaving whatever he considered telling me unspoken. I curl my hand into a fist to trap the warmth of his lips on my palm, to keep it from floating away on the night air. "Are we…okay?"

"If she's not able to work it in, I will," Peeta says then turns to look at me for approval, once more the cool mentor. All I can do is nod.

* * *

Sleep eludes me, of course.

The interviews went off perfectly. By the time it was my turn, the other Victors had already laid the groundwork of their own small rebellion, working the audience up until they cried at me in my bridal silks. Then they wailed when Peeta stood up there and spoke with regret of a tiny family just barely begun and the child he'd never get to spoil rotten as a pseudo uncle. For his part, Gale responded appropriately when the cameras trained on him in his black wedding tuxedo, head bowed and eyes misty.

I squeeze my eyes shut and relive the moment when we all joined hands. The last image on the screen of Peeta and I, hands clasped and faces set in determination. Joined in the goal of getting the pregnant woman and her unborn child safely out of the Arena. As I watch the picture fade in my mind's eye, I can't help but think that Portia dressed Peeta to complement me once my wedding dress burned away to Mockingjay plumage.

She dressed him in white. A heavy knit turtleneck with a black metal collar folded over the neck, black metal cuffs peeking out from under the sleeves of the blazer, and a faux metal handkerchief in artful folds and the same shade of onyx in his breast pocket. If my costume brought rebellion to mind, his screamed of bondage. Of suppressed innocence. Knowing how deliberate our stylists are in their choices, I can't help but believe that this one was as well.

Unable to lay still a second longer, I fling aside my covers. I should go to Gale, to say my good-byes since we barely had time in the chaos after the interviews. But my feet lead me to Peeta's door. It's cracked open, so I let myself in, only enough to shut the door behind me.

His bed remains empty and untouched, and as I stand there, he walks out of the bathroom, dressed only in a pair of shorts. As I stare at his chest and then his legs, he tosses aside the clothes he carries. I think I see the turtleneck and the pants from the interview, but really, I can't look away from his leg. I've never seen it before. He always wore pants at night on the trains.

"Is it sprouting warts or something?" he asks, making me jerk my eyes back up to his. Only he's laughing slightly.

"I can't be pregnant," I blurt out instead and he shakes his head, but walks over to the drawers to pull out a clean shirt. He pulls it on before facing me again.

"It's too late to take it back. Do I need to apologize for anything?"

"No," I say. I don't know why I feel the need to explain this to him, but I can't seem to stop the words from coming out of my mouth. "Gale and I haven't... _I_ haven't…"

"You've never had sex," Peeta manages to fill in the blanks for me. His voice carries no judgement in it though.

"When I kissed Gale, in the Arena, that was my first kiss," I murmur.

"Fuck," Peeta says and I glare at him, ready to shred him for thinking less of me. "Katniss, I had no idea. If I had, I'm not sure I would have - I'm sorry. Your first kiss shouldn't be like that."

"Yours was better?" I snap and Peeta's lips quirk.

"No, not really."

"Who was she?" The question flies out before I can think better of it.

"Honestly? I don't even remember. Haymitch got me drunk as a skunk one night after my Games. I have vague memories of a girl waiting on my porch when I stumbled home, some kissing, and -" he shakes his head and changes directions on me and it annoys me. "Doesn't matter. The point is, I wish I could give you and Gale another shot."

The thought occurs to me that this is sort of what he's doing by volunteering for us. But then I think of what he manages to do in his interviews. The ideas and strategies to turn the Capitol on its head. What the rebellion really needs is someone like him. Someone who can, with the simple turn of a sentence, innocuously challenge the system Snow protects so closely. Someone who could rally an entire country behind him with just a few words.

Add in Gale's rebellious fire, both of them mourning their shared loss, they could do it. They could find a way to end the Games.

"You should get some sleep," Peeta urges, his words pulling me from my thoughts. I hadn't realized how close he'd gotten to me while I thought about rebellions. He blinks as we watch one another, waiting for someone to make the first move. In the moonlight, his blond lashes nearly disappear, but I know that they're golden in the sunlight. "Katniss."

I wrap my arms around his neck and pull our bodies together. He puts up no resistance, although his breath hitches as I brush my lips over his. Peeta's hands rest on my back, clenching into fistfuls of my shirt as his eyes close and he shakes his head.

"We shouldn't," he whispers.

"I don't care," I confess and a strangled moan rumbles in his chest for a second before his arms clasp me tight and his mouth covers mine. Hunger like I've never known before consumes me, ravaging all thoughts of should or of anything but kissing Peeta. His hands rove over my back, into my hair and down to cup soft flesh in his hot palms then back again. One of us or both of us will be dead in a few days and I have run out of reasons to hold back from him.

His lips skim over my cheek to my ear, then down my neck as I tip my head back and let him. I cling to his arms as my knees quake and vibrant life pulses in my veins. He murmurs my name to the valley between my breasts, and even though I'm still fully clothed, I feel laid bare before him. Peeta grips handfuls of my nightgown, tugging it up to expose my calves to the cool air of his room, but he doesn't push any further, seemingly content to hold me in his arms and kiss me.

Frustrated with the lack of progress, I wriggle out of his embrace. Fear and something else flash in his eyes. He releases my nightgown as I step back, but I take a deep breath and slip the button at the base of my neck through the slot. As I keep going, I manage to bring my gaze down from the ceiling to see if I am having the desired effect. I've never given much thought to seduction before.

Peeta's wide eyes remain riveted to my hands, his mouth open and his chest heaving. A thrill races through me and I use his distraction to lower my gaze further, momentarily startled as I notice something shifting in his shorts. Of course, I know the basics, having seen mating animals before, and that one awkward talk I had with my mother after Gale and I got back from the Games. But knowing it and seeing it are two different things.

By the time I reach the last button, at my waistline, Peeta's shorts have turned into a tent. I bite my lip and suppress a giggle. This probably isn't a good time to laugh, so I focus on his eyes, just in time for him to lift his own to meet mine.

"Can I…?" he licks his lips, teeth catching on the bottom one before he manages to speak again. "Can I touch you?"

"That's kind of what I was hoping for," I say and that's all he seems to need, reaching out with both hands to slide my nightgown off my shoulders. It drops off my body with a little help and pools around my feet. Peeta groans and palms one breast, his thumb swiping across the nipple, making me gasp at the sharp burst of pleasure.

He curses and lowers his head, his mouth making me feel things I never thought possible. THe swift way they course through my body and settle, pulsing, between my legs has me clinging to his hair, my body stiffening in automatic fear. Peeta scoops me into his arms and lays me on the bed, crawling on top of me and murmuring words of praise, beauty, and undying love as he paints kisses and caresses over the canvas of my skin. Gradually, I relax, reminding myself that this is what I want. And why shouldn't I? What we do here tonight will hurt no one. Not if I'm dead in two weeks.

Peeta nuzzles my belly and my abs twitch in response. I curl my fingers through his hair, playing with the tresses as he looks up at me and rests his chin next to my belly button. "I want to taste you, Katniss. Can I do that?"

"Haven't you been tasting me for the last five minutes?" I ask, confused by what he's requesting. His eyes widen for a second and then he kisses my hip before sliding back up my body.

"I'll take that as a no," he says and I turn my head to keep him from kissing me again. His lips land beneath my ear, but he seems content to kiss there as I squirm and try to get out my question.

"I just don't understand," I say petulantly. "Tell me what you mean."

"Alright," he murmurs and one hand floats down my side then between us until he's cupping my sex. "I want to taste your lips."

His fingers rub slowly over the fabric covered folds and my legs relax, opening further for him as warmth begins to pool where he touches.

"I want to taste your sex, your pussy, your flower, your honey," he says. His lips curl up in a smile that I can feel and I hear teasing in his voice, but laughter at the ridiculous words bubbles up in my chest until he moves aside my panties and the rough pads of his fingers trail through my folds. "I want to swallow all of the wet down here and pleasure you until you cover my tongue with more. I want your uninhibited moans as I drink your release, Katniss. So I'll ask again...can I taste you?"

"I guess so," I say uncertainly. He shakes his head and slips one finger inside of me.

"I won't unless you're certain." His finger pumps slowly, my walls catching on him, but his lips and fingers soon have me spread wide on the bed and panting, gripping his shoulders and begging for more with each thrust of my hips into his hand. When his tongue dips into the hollow of my collarbone and I shiver in response, the words spill out.

"Do it! I want you to!"

I expect immediate results, but Peeta takes his time moving down my body until I'm growling with impatience and frustration when he slips his fingers from me. A second later, my back bows on the bed and I stuff the sheets in my gaping mouth to stop the noises as he laps at me. My toes curl and his tongue zig zags through my folds, dips inside me as the hunger shifts to unbearable starvation. Fire rages behind my eyelids and my knees knock into his head until he grips my backside and sits up, taking me with him until he's kneeling and I'm practically upside down, drawn tighter as he tastes and tastes and sucks, making a meal out of me and my pleasure.

"Peeta," I manage to say, the fear rife in my voice as the feelings hold me together for one brief moment before I fly apart and kick wildly in the air.

When I am able to think again, I open my eyes. Peeta has already set me back on the bed and now kneels between my spread legs. He uses the sheets to wipe glistening moisture from his lips and chin, a faint smile quirking his lips. His shorts are still tented, a small patch darkened with something wet. I reach out to touch it, wondering if he was able to ejaculate while he tasted me. His penis twitches at my touch and I look back up at him.

"Is that it?" I croak. Peeta cringes and moves to stand, but I sit up and place a hand on his thigh to stop him, unsure what I said to hurt him. "I just meant that you…"

Lacking the words, I drop my gaze to his shorts and take another deep breath before I pull out and lower the waist band until his erection bobs free.

"Huh," I say curiously. I've seen one before, since naked bodies are not an oddity in the home of a healer, but never one in its erect form. I reach out a tentative hand and touch the liquid on his tip, rub it between my fingers as he sucks in a breath. Since he's not protesting, I run a finger down his length and watch the thing respond. His skin is hot to the touch, but it slides over the underlying rigidity. Peeta uses one hand to hold his shorts down out of the way and I use both hands to explore him, occasionally looking up to watch his chest rise and fall with heavy, steady breaths. His teeth digging into his lower lip, and his lashes quivering against his cheeks.

Just when I think I've got the hang of touching him, he snaps his shorts back into place and shrinks away from me. Before I can protest or explain my inexperience, his lips find mine again, pressing me back down into the bed as I startle at the strange taste on his lips. It's different and as his tongue sweeps through my mouth and his hips grind into mine, I realize that it's myself I taste on him. Knowing this, I make a study of the taste until I decide that I like sucking it off his tongue and his lower lip. Or maybe I just like the noises he makes when I do that.

Either way, it stirs the hunger back to life and I tug at his shorts to let him know I want him in me.

"Katniss, maybe we should stop," he groans but neither of us makes a move to quit or leave the bed. "I don't have any protection."

"Doesn't matter," I say as we get his shorts off and he kicks them to the floor. He winces and I read pain in his eyes for a moment. He probably thinks I mean that it'd work to our advantage. Then there really would be the possibility of a baby when I leave the Arena. But he doesn't know that I don't plan on leaving the Arena at all and I somehow know he won't want to hear it now, or if he does, he'll just start talking about how my family needs me and test my resolve over who should survive these Games and that's the last thing I want right now, so I pull his head down to mine and kiss him swift and short before saying something I think he'd rather hear instead. "I want to feel you. All of you. And just you. Inside of me."

He looks uncertain, but grips himself. The head of his penis shifts through my folds as I try to relax, but he's only an inch or two inside me before the stretch begins to hurt.

"No I can't. I won't hurt you," he says. I grip his rear and sink my nails into him, refusing to let him go.

"Don't leave me," I beg. We stare at one another a moment and then he pulls out of me, I make to argue but he rolls onto his back and pulls me on top of him, shifting my hips to align us again.

"Take as long as you need. I'm all yours," he says as I lower myself on him. He bites his lip and closes his eyes, flexing his fingers as I drop and rise, swivel and grind until it feels good again. Bit by slow bit, my walls stretch to fit him. Inch by slow inch, he fills me until I feel the pressure of fullness low between my hips.

"Oh," I say in wonder as I sit with him fully inside of me. He's still not looking at me, though, and I am torn between relief that he can't see my awkwardness and consternation because I want to feel connected to him. This is pointless if he feels a million miles away. "Peeta?"

"Trying not to embarrass myself," he says and I laugh.

"Why would you embarrass yourself?"

"Because I've never done this before," he admits quietly. His words confuse me.

"But that girl...the night you were drunk as a skunk…"

"She sucked my cock, Katniss. We didn't go any further than that. We didn't...have sex."

I sit there in silence, considering his words and the strange joy that spreads through my limbs at the realization that this is something that is ours. Something that we share.

"If you've changed you're mind-" I stop Peeta's words by moving my hips experimentally. His mouth rounds in a silent "o" and his knees bend up, supporting me as I keep moving, hands braced on his clenching abs, his feet planted firmly on the mattress.

The hunger spreads more slowly this time, driven out to the tips of my being my our shared pleasure and the rush that I feel at the effect I clearly have on him. Our eyes lock and his hands roam over me, help me at times and titillate at others. Time seems to stand still as all that matters is us. Just Katniss and Peeta and whatever this seed is blooming between us.

"Katniss," he moans, his neck arching as his fingers dig into me and pull until I fall forward, catching myself with my hands on his chest as a tiny pearl of pure sensation rubs against him and I gasp. He seems lost to the world, so I move my hips of my own accord, frantic and crazed for the release I can feel coiling taut. My body clenches with need until it bursts under the pressure and I thrash on top of him.

Awareness is slow to return and with it comes embarrassment. Something wet and sticky pools between us. I open my eyes to find red claw marks crossing his chest. But his hands rub up and down my back and his breath dances over my hair as we lay there, a heartbeat away from sleep.

It's only when I wake in my room, with Cinna knocking on the door and reminding me that I might want a shower that the guilt sets in my bones. How am I supposed to pretend he's nothing but an ally?

* * *

I grip handfuls of moist soil in my hands as I watch Finnick work and Peeta's life drain away. It's my fault. I hadn't warned him in time about the forcefield. My chest aches and I tell myself it's from Finnick stiff arming me just a second ago, but as Peeta finally coughs and rolls to his side, the aching bursts into sunlight and I scramble over to him.

"Peeta?"

"Careful," he says. "There's a forcefield up there."

I laugh but it's tainted by the ugly crying.

"You were dead!" I sob, not thinking of the prudence of my words. "Your heart stopped!"

"Seems to be working now," he says.

I help him sit upright and brush his hair off his forehead, scattered leaves from his wetsuit. I press my hand to his chest where I had my ear earlier, to feel the reassuring thud where just moments ago I found stillness and silence. It's only Finnick's presence and his comment that pregnancy hormones are clearly making me overly emotional that keeps me from flinging myself at Peeta and kissing him for our entire world to see. He's alive, and that's all that I care about. But the warning reaches Peeta's ears, too and translates into the look he gives me.

 _You're engaged. To Gale. You're supposed to be pregnant with his baby._

Not crying over Peeta.

I'm careful after that.

The jabberjays provide a real test as Peeta holds me and I cling to him afterwards. Even the beach as we wait for midnight and he talks about my family waiting at home and how I'll make an amazing mother. As he speaks, I want to silence the lies with my lips, but I know that I can't. Our survival depends on the entire world believing that I'm carrying Gale's child and that Peeta is nobly sacrificing himself to save a family.

And yet, I can't help but think that if either of us could be a parent, it should be Peeta. It doesn't stop me from dreaming of a world with no Games and no Capitol. Of a meadow, like the one in the lullaby I sang to Rue, where Peeta's child could be safe.

When our allies suggest we separate, I search for a reason to argue. I can see he is too, but we have nothing. No argument to stand on if we're nothing more than allies. I've already pushed too far, and yet...as I tell him that I'll see him at midnight, my body sways towards him and his towards me. We halt ourselves just in time, and I can only hope the audience blames the heat and dehydration.

Everything falls apart so fast I don't have time to think about audiences or anything other than finding Peeta and protecting him as I race through the jungle. The blow to my head slows my thinking and I stare at the wire next to Beetee, trying to figure out the plan. The canon sounds and I screech his name. His response is much closer this time. I kneel in the foliage as I hear someone approach from the opposite direction of Peeta's voice and scream again, drawing them into my trap.

Then the moonlight glints off of Finnick Odair's bracelet and Haymitch's voice is in my head. I wrap the wire around my arrow just as Peeta crashes through the undergrowth and halts to watch me. His knife drips red. I aim towards the weak point in the forcefield, my eyes flickering to him for one last view and I scream at him to get away from the tree.

As I loose my arrow, he smiles. Lightning strikes and the world explodes.


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you want to talk about it?" Gale asks as we leave Command. His hand brushes over my lower back and I walk faster to get away from him.

"No," I tell him. I don't want to talk to him about it. I don't want to talk to anyone about this. About what I saw in Twelve or about what they're asking me to do.

"Maybe Haymitch can-"

"Don't bring that drunk asshole anywhere near me!" I snap. Gale steps back as I whirl around to face him. We both know that my anger at Haymitch has nothing to do with the meeting we just got out of, another session of everyone in District Thirteen's command structure trying to convince the unruly and murderous teenage girl that she should rise up and become the symbol of the rebellion.

"We couldn't tell you, Katniss. If it failed and you were captured-"

"But it was okay to leave Peeta behind to be captured? When he did know? What do you think they're doing to him right now, Gale? Feeding him champagne and caviar? Hourly back massages?"

"If we're lucky, they've already killed him quietly," Gale says and I release a squealing snarl of rage at his callousness. "He knew what he was doing when he volunteered, Katniss. You act like we somehow used him."

"No, both of you used me," I say before I leave him calling my name in vain. I find my air duct and climb into it, curling into a ball and closing my eyes. He's there as soon as I do. Peeta. His smile in the moment before the lightning hit at midnight. I twist the hospital bracelet still on my wrist.

 _Mentally disoriented,_ it proclaims. How painfully accurate.

Peeta knew about the plan to break us out of the Arena. He knew about the growing rebellion and even about District Thirteen. So many times in the two weeks since they pulled me out of that cursed jungle, I've thought back over our conversation on the roof, the things he said during training and in the Arena that made my hair stand on end, as though he were trying to convey a deeper meaning but couldn't. Or wouldn't. I don't know how I feel about him keeping me in the dark.

Then there's his final smile. Happiness that I was safe? The anticipation of a successful plan? Relief that I had clearly figured it out? Or something else? He was willing to die to get me out of there, and I can't help but wonder...Did he use me too? Was it all for the rebellion? I don't know and it's killing me.

Except Snow has him now. It would be better if he were dead. But Gale and I both know that if they were going to execute Peeta, it wouldn't be done quietly. It would be mandatory viewing. A warning to the rest of us.

I lace my fingers together and rest my forehead on my clasped fists. Thinking about Peeta and what's happening to him now, what happened between us or that last smile he gave me at the lightning tree do nothing to help me answer the question before me.

 _What am I going to do?_

I could walk away from this. All of it. Into the woods and disappear forever. I don't care about their rebellion, but something seems to be keeping me here. They want me to become the face and the voice of the rebellion. Their Mockingjay. I'm not sure that I can do it. Don't they know they left their voice behind?

But I can still be the face.

I think of Peeta on the roof before each of the Games and I know, we can't go back. Giving up now would only make things worse than they already were for the Districts. Worse than watching their children die in the Games or working themselves to death in the mines and starving because there are others who take more than they need. Who take everything. If he were here, he'd want me to do this. Otherwise he wouldn't have tried so hard to keep Gale out of the Quell and then to get me out of there, too. To show the Capitol that they don't own us. And now, I want to do the same.

* * *

My head throbs a little with all the arguing. About what a disaster I am and how impossible I am to coach. How useless the footage they got is. Plutarch's face is turning red as he insists that having Gale and I together will be far more effective than filming us separately, despite the fact that whatever chemistry we used to have is clearly dead. Coin seems annoyed with the whole thing, mentioning for the hundredth time that they should've saved the boy, meaning Peeta. And even though I couldn't agree with her more, despite the implications that I am more useful as a martyr than a symbol, her nonchalance about the whole thing annoys me, especially since no one knows for sure if he's even alive still.

"Then why didn't you save him?" I ask and slowly, the conversation tapers off as all eyes turn to look at me.

"Soldier Everdeen?" Coin uses my name only to convey a request to repeat what I said. There are no wasted words or breaths in District Thirteen.

"Why didn't you save Peeta?" I snarl and nervous looks get passed around the room. "He was right there. Standing by the tree with me and Finnick and Beetee."

"We couldn't stay any longer," Plutarch says. I send my glare to his neighbor. Haymitch, who of all people, should've wanted to save Peeta, his first Victor, his family. Until Peeta came along, Haymitch had no one except his bottles of booze.

"We got as many of you out as possible. If we hadn't left when we did, we wouldn't have made it out of there at all," Boggs chimes in. His usually calm gray eyes ask a question I'm not prepared to answer… Who would I have left behind instead? Finnick? Beetee? I can't bring myself to wish that on either of them, but that does little to soothe the fury I feel that this group stacked and ranked our lives in terms of our usefulness to their rebellion, that they felt it was alright to decide who would live and who they would leave behind to die. It makes them no better than Gamemakers.

The conversation shifts from there, back to the business at hand. How to get usable footage out of me.

"I'm not finished," I snarl and Gale stiffens next to me as I bargain for lives and barely gain an inch. I refuse to film another second unless they listen. In the end, it's a hollow victory.

Prim keeps her cat. The Victors will not be rescued from the Capitol. I do manage to get an agreement in writing that they will reconsider after we take District Two. But that's such a long ways off.

It's decided that I need to be somewhere I can genuinely interact with people. Gale will go with me; he's not to leave my side if we're beyond the borders of Thirteen. Of course, we can't have the Star Crossed Lovers of District Twelve apart now that they are finally free to be together. And we are to get our shit together and stop acting like we'd rather rip each other's throats out than kiss.

Anger simmers in my periphery as they plan our excursion to District 8. Anger that they still treat me like a chess piece. That they can dismiss Peeta's life so easily. The assumption that Gale and I will continue the star-crossed lovers act for the sake of the cameras. At this point, I'm just lucky they haven't forced me to marry him.

* * *

We're whisked off to District 8 and while I fight back nausea the whole time, Cressida and the others assure me that they got excellent footage. At what cost, I wonder as I watch the final cut. The propo is incredible, unlike anything I've ever seen before. Yet I can't get the sight of the burning hospital out of my head.

Then Peeta appears on the screens throughout Thirteen. Healthy and whole, if a little tired looking. I spend hours debating if it's a trick of the light or if he's lost a little weight. His voice seems fine, unhurt, and I wonder if he's somehow talked them into treating him like the beloved Victor he is rather than a prisoner and a rebel.

Until his words contradict everything we've been trying to do and the shouts ring through the District, branding him a traitor and calling for his death. As I duck my head and hide in a supply closet, I am glad he's not here, for the first time since I found out he'd been left behind. But if he were here, he wouldn't be saying those things.

I rock on my haunches and scoot to the side when Gale joins me in the dark. I don't say a word, waiting for him to say it first.

"So he's alive," Gale says and I nod. "Are you going to say anything?"

"He's not a traitor."

"Probably not," Gale admits, plucking at the hem of his pants.

"Why do you think he said those things?" I whisper.

"I don't know. Maybe he was forced. Maybe he's trying to make some kind of deal to barter for his release. He didn't look like they'd been torturing him, though."

"His foot was bouncing," I say and Gale stares at me. I sniffle and wipe my nose. "He doesn't...he doesn't get nervous like that in front of cameras."

"But at least we know he's okay. For now."

"For now," I repeat. I can hear the question Gale doesn't ask. _Are_ we _okay now that we know Peeta's alive? Will we stop fighting all the time?_

"But people believe him. He could've done a lot of damage today," Gale says and I nod. "They're going to want a response from us tomorrow. Maybe today."

I nod again and Gale leaves me with a heavy sigh. After dinner, we don't talk about Peeta as Cressida runs us through some ideas for a propo we plan on shooting on our upcoming trip to District Seven.

* * *

Unease and nausea become my companions as I provide the rebellion with propos and watch Peeta spin words that are the antithesis of everything I say. Everything I know he believes. I watch his gradual deterioration through his appearances on Caesar Flickerman's new show and wonder if the lies are slowly killing him. No one else seems to notice or care. And I start to wonder if maybe I'm imagining things and never really knew Peeta at all.

Gale and I are allowed to hunt, as long as we give our catches to the kitchen. In the woods, we're able to regain some of what died in the Arena. While we sit on a fallen log to rest one afternoon, and I chew on a mint leaf, he sits heavily beside me.

"You're angry with me," he says. Slowly, I open my eyes and look at him. "Katniss, I know this whole romance thing has upset you and you know the last thing I want is to do anything for the Capitol. But it's not for them anymore."

I mull over his words for a moment before I finally shake my head. "Now it's for the rebellion. Is that any different?"

"Of course it is," he insists, laying a hand over mine. "When we talked about leaving Twelve, after our Games...and you said that maybe you could be different somewhere else...this is somewhere else. Here, it could be just for us. If you let it be."

He's right. It is somewhere else. And yet, it still doesn't feel right. It's not really just for us. I still can't see myself married or having kids. The rebellion could still fail. Snow could still kill us all. And the cameras would keep filming.

And then there's what happened between Peeta and me. I no longer know what to think of it. I thought maybe he loved me. Maybe I loved him. But now the Capitol has taken away the chance for me to find out if it was real.

Gale sighs when I don't say anything right away. I think about our days in the woods and how essential he's been to my life. We were the key to each other's survival in so many ways and yet I let the Games and his unexpected confession of love come between us.

"Maybe," I finally manage to say. He doesn't look convinced, but he nods in acceptance.

* * *

We shoot footage in Twelve and I sleep on the hovercraft on the way there. My mother is worried about how much I've been sleeping during the day and how little at night. The nightmares that haunt me, and refuse to go away without Peeta's arms to protect me, keep her and Prim awake too. Pollux asks me to sing and I dredge up an old song my father once taught me. _The Hanging Tree._ Of course, they catch the whole thing on camera.

Gale asks me to marry him once more and kisses me in the kitchen of my house in Victor's village while the camera rolls and my eyes wander through the window, across the street to the pile of rubble that was once Peeta's house. Tears sting my eyes and the kiss tastes of misery and ash.

That night, Thirteen broadcasts to the Districts that it controls, announcing the Capitol's failure in stamping out love and togetherness. Our kiss is the centerpiece, along with the joyous news. I'm supposed to marry Gale the first week of October. The entire nation will be watching.

I don't know what to do.

* * *

The nausea wins the second Peeta's blood spatters on the tiles and the screen turns to fuzz. I retch into a trash can while everyone else argues about what he can possibly mean.

"He's warning us!" Haymitch insists. "Katniss - tell them!"

My knuckles turn white as I force myself to stand and face the expectant eyes on me. "Haymitch is right. I don't know how he knows, but if he says they're going to bomb us, then that's what they're going to do."

When the sirens start, I go looking for Prim. Eventually I find her, coaxing the cat out of an air duct. I grab the foul beast by the scruff, not even flinching at his claws on my skin, and shove him into her arms. We descend with the crowds, orderly and neat until the first bomb hits, making all of Thirteen quake. Sometimes, training means little in the face of real attacks.

Fear rises up in a tidal wave. The sea of fleeing humanity pushes and shifts. I try to protect Prim as she shouts in distress. My foot catches on a slit in the metal grating and then I'm falling, rolling and protecting my head.

I land hard, the world spinning and my back aching with a splintering pain. Feet pound over and around me. Hands grasp me and I hear my name, muffled under layers of nausea and confusion. Gale hauls me to my feet and I puke at the foot of the metal stairs. He drags me the rest of the way to the bunker. As soon as we find my mother, she takes me from him, insisting she'll check me over while he makes sure his family made it safely to the bunker. Settled in a corner, I obey her every command. Prim asks how she can help and my mother sends her away to get the damn cat settled.

"Are you tender here?" I nod. "And here?"

The bunker shudders as the distant rumbles of a second bomb hit. I try to stand and my mother forces me to lay back down.

"They've built it to survive. How long?" she asks after examining me for a few minutes and I shake my head, raise my hand to it to try and clear the cobwebs.

"How long what?"

"The nausea and the exhaustion. How long have you had them?" she prompts and closes a curtain between us and the rest of Thirteen. A camera crew tries to join us and she yells at them to leave.

"Since after the Quell, I think? Because of the concussion."

"Get some sleep," she tells me as she tucks me in. I wander in and out of dreams, feel the deep shudders of the bombs as they hit and wonder if Peeta's alright. If they only hit him for the cameras and stopped as soon as the broadcast ended. But then why torture him at all? He looked awful. Sunken eyes, pale skin, dull hair. He's lost so much weight and no amount of makeup or fancy clothes could cover the awkward way he moved. Like a person in extreme pain. No, I was right before. And so was Gale. It would be better if he were dead. Better if they had just killed him quietly.

Plutarch stops by to talk wedding plans, but I can't say a word. The pain has become too much. I'm seeing things. Snakes writhing on the floor. I cover my body with the thin blanket and call for my mother. Peeta whispers that he'll get her then kisses my forehead. I murmur his name and ask him to stay. He falters but leaves to find my mother anyways. He doesn't come back, just Mom and her prodding hands and whispered words of concern when I tell her that I'm having cramps and think I'm bleeding. That my cycle has started.

"When was your last one?" she asks and I shake my head, trying to remember.

"March, I think." I moan in pain and then manage the rest. "But I've never been regular."

My mother banishes everyone except one doctor that she swears she trusts, insisting that only the two of them be allowed to care for her daughter. I'm surprised Plutarch and Coin allow it, but my mother seems to have some sway with Plutarch and he manages to keep out the rest of Thirteen.

Her hands on me are gentle and loving. Her words are not.

"Katniss, you're having a miscarriage," she whispers. "Do you want me to get Gale?"

"No, I'm not pregnant. That was a story we told them. For the Games," I say, gritting my teeth through more pain.

"Are you sure?" she asks and something in her tone cuts through the agony and makes everything lucid for just a few minutes. I think of Peeta and the night we spent together, the whispered words of love he gasped into my ear, the feel of us joined as one and his face as he came inside me.

"No," I whisper, then louder with each crescendo of pain in my body as I realize what she's saying. "No no no no no. It was only once."

"Sometimes once is all it takes. I'll get Gale," she murmurs and brushes hair back off my forehead. I grab her wrist and squeeze.

"No, Peeta," I whisper. I repeat his name, hoping she'll understand because I can't seem to find the words I need. She stares down at me, purses her lips, and although I expect judgement, I only see sorrow. "I need Peeta. Can you save the baby?"

I have always feared losing my children to the Reaping. To the Games. But as I lay there crying and hurting, all I can think is how unbearable it will be to wake up from this nightmare and know that I lost Peeta's child without any help from the Capitol. That I couldn't keep her safe at all.

"I can't," my mother whispers. She injects medicine for the pain into my arm and eventually, I sleep. There's no relief in dreams.

* * *

Haymitch crosses his arms and stares down at me while my mother sees to other patients. "You gonna tell me what the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Fuck off," I mutter and he bends over to smile in my face. Even sober, his breath still reeks and I blanch at the stench.

"I'll find out, sweetheart. It's my job to know what my Tributes and Victors are up to. Like the night before the Quell...I know you weren't in your room until close to dawn. And I know it wasn't Gale who put you there."

Bile rises in my throat at his insinuation. I glare at him and he nods.

"Think you oughta do something about this predicament you're in? Meathead isn't actually stupid. In fact, he's damn smart. I imagine he knows enough about the birds and the bees and the flowers in the trees to-"

"I'll tell the medics who's been siphoning off their morphling," I rejoin and his eyes narrow at me.

"I want him back, too, Sweetheart," he growls, and I think of the way he couldn't even look at me when he told me that the Capitol had Peeta. Of all the nasty words we threw at one another on the hovercraft while Gale and Finnick and Plutarch watched, stunned for a moment before they managed to separate us. "That's not gonna happen if you don't play by their rules here. They've got no good reason to go after him. So I suggest you figure something out. Soon."

"Doesn't matter now. I've lost it anyways," I mutter and roll away from him, curling in on myself. "Now at least part of the lies are actually true."

* * *

Plans begin for the wedding. Finnick retreats further into his knots. Peeta doesn't show up on the broadcasts anymore. I recover anyways, despite my best efforts. Slowly. At least physically. I come up with the crazy idea that if I play the part they want, if I am madly in love with Gale at all hours of the day, maybe they'll do what I ask and rescue Peeta.

We head to District Two and make plans that keep failing to crack The Nut. Gale and Beetee have the only idea Lyme or Coin want to hear. We argue. It seems to be what we've become best at doing, but eventually, Gale and Beetee's plan is accepted. We attack tomorrow.

That night, I sneak into his tent. It won't be the same. It takes me a moment to work up the courage, but eventually, I slip beneath the blankets with Gale. We're quiet and I focus on the feelings, if only so I can feel alive for a moment.

But as he undoes my pants and slides his hand between my legs, something in my face must stop him. I stare at the side of the tent a second too long before looking up at him to figure out why he stopped.

"What are you thinking?" he asks.

"I don't know," I tell him. He shakes his head and rolls away from me.

"Then it's like being with someone who's drunk. It doesn't count. Did you bring a camera with you?"

"Why would you say that?" I ask and he glares at me.

"Because you only do things like this for them. Never for me."

I try to argue, but I can't. Instead, I head back towards my own sleeping area.

We destroy The Nut and I hide from Gale while memories of my father's death and then of my nights on the train or in the Capitol with Peeta distract me. I wonder what he would say about this. Somehow I know that he would be able to articulate why it's so wrong to be shooting at one another while people are clawing their way out of a mine. Why it's wrong to remove all of their exits or wait for them with guns and violence instead of care and hope.

At least the Peeta I knew would say that. I don't even recognize the one I've seen on the TV for the past few months.

Maybe I'm naive. Gale tells me that wars aren't won that way. I'm not sure that I care about winning anything anymore. But when the first train arrives in the square, carrying survivors from The Nut, I abandon my speech and my post next to Gale and for the first time since they fished me out of that Arena, as I reach towards a wounded and frightened man with Peeta's words in my mouth, I feel whole and alive. Like maybe I am the Mockingjay instead of pretending to be her.

And then I watch myself get shot on television.

* * *

"You've missed a lot," Haymitch informs me when I wake up, groggy and aching.

"I feel like I should be dead," I tell him. He scoffs and stands up to ring a bell, to let the horde of doctors know that I'm awake.

"Cinna designed your armor too well for that. Ruptured spleen and broken ribs. That's it."

"Do we have Two?"

"We have Two," he confirms and I think back to the deal I made.

"Then they should be planning a rescue mission," I murmur as I hear the doctors descending. Haymitch shakes his head.

"They reconsidered for five minutes. Coin vetoed it. We're close enough that it was deemed not worth the risk. They're on their own until we get to the Capitol."

"Peeta could be dead by then, if he isn't already," I say and Haymitch winces. He escapes under cover of the space being too crowded once the doctors arrive.

* * *

Annie somehow escapes. They find her in District One, badly injured and half out of her mind with fear. It takes them days to calm her down enough to learn anything about how she got out, and even then only Finnick seems to be able to fully understand what she's saying. All we know for sure is this...the three of them were scheduled for execution. A very public execution. Annie, Peeta, and Johanna. They somehow escaped when they were in transit from the prison where they were being held, but they were separated somewhere in the Capitol. She's almost certain that Peeta, at least, is dead. He was the distraction meant to buy the other two some time.

* * *

I will kill Snow.

Weeks pass and there's no word of Peeta or Johanna. They're believed to be dead. Gale and I train in preparations for the Capitol. We kiss for the cameras. We stand up and say the vows from Twelve. From home. There's a dance and food, and everyone tells me it's a beautiful ceremony and that the food is excellent. I can't recall. By the time Gale asks if I'm ready for the Toasting, I'm sick to my stomach and have a headache that distorts the vision in my right eye. Everything in a strange shade of brown and gold, speckled like a toad.

We don't have a toasting. Instead my mother gives me sleep syrup and sends me to bed. In our compartment, not the newly assigned one that I'm supposed to share with Gale. The next morning, we leave for the Capitol.

Gale sits at the other end of the train car, as far away from me as he can. That night, when we stop to refuel the train, Gale and I slip into the trees to hunt. When I lean against a trunk and stare up at the stars, Gale grabs my face and kisses me. I drop my bow and rest my fists on his chest but otherwise can't move. When he lifts his head, there are tears in his eyes. Real tears.

"You thought I was him. In Thirteen, when you were sick. You asked him to stay and then kept saying his name. What happened to make you shut me out and let him in?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," I whisper, not sure what I mean. Gale probably has no idea just how far or how deep things went between Peeta and I. Maybe he suspects, but he doesn't know about the night before the Quell or all the kisses that I wish weren't secrets or about the child I lost. The one I didn't even know about until it was too late. The child I named Daisy after she'd already been scooped from my body and discarded like trash. The child who would have been born in May if I'd been able to protect her. The dancing girl I see every night in my dreams before a fire consumes her. Another ghost to haunt me at night.

My mother managed to fabricate a lie and a story to explain my illness during the bombing and afterwards — a lie worthy of Peeta's skill. Fitting since it was the very existence of his lost child she was covering up.

But it doesn't matter now. With every passing day with no word of Peeta, the odds that he's still alive dwindle and tick away. Tick tock. Just like our lives in the Quell Arena, under that pink sky.

It's in this moment, with Gale crying in the moonlight and hollow wedding vows between us, that I accept that Peeta is truly gone. Whatever we had is gone now too.

"You're a real piece of work," he says and leaves me, his footsteps silent as he returns to the train. When I climb back into the car, I sit at the opposite end of the train again, my knees pulled up and my arms crossed on top of them, face buried in my elbow to hide my tears.

Somehow, I've lost them both.

* * *

The trip to the hospital in District Eight went so well that they insist I visit the one in the Capitol, right on the edges of the city, as soon as I arrive. Gale tries to tell them that I'm too tired, and I probably am, but I go anyways. They won't care. They'll actually prefer it. The scars, the fatigue, the weariness that won't leave my eyes...this is why I belong to them.

We wander up and down the aisles of cots while I speak to soldiers from Thirteen and every other District in Panem. There are even a few from Districts One and Two, although not as many. There's only one section left for us to visit when Gale gets called away for some kind of strategy meeting with Boggs.

"Are you coming?"

"No," I tell him. "I'll finish here. You go ahead. It's not like they need anything from me other than my pretty face and my singing voice, right?"

Gale opens his mouth to say something but thinks better of it and mumbles under his breath. After he's gone, I turn to continue down the aisles when a voice reaches out to me from the past. A voice I never thought I'd hear again.

"Am I lucky enough to witness the first marital spat?"

"Peeta," I say and drop to my knees next to his cot. I can't believe he's here. Alive and safe. All the pain of the past few months begins to lift off my shoulders. His back is to me and I reach out, brushing my hand over locks of filthy blond hair. His clothes are just as dirty and ratted, and when he carefully turns over to face me, I gasp in shock.

"Here to finish me off, Sweetheart? It wouldn't take much at this point."

His eyes are hard and empty, his body emaciated. Bruises and scars, new injuries and old litter his skin where I can see. A pair of manacles clanks ominously as he moves and rage fills me that they've chained him to his cot. This isn't the healthy, steady boy who held me on the train or coached me through my first Games, or made me feel more alive in the moments when I was sure I was about to die than I ever have before or since.

"What did they do to you?" I whisper.

"Only what was to be expected," he says. "How's your husband?"

It's not a fair question. Not after what I've been through. But Peeta doesn't know any of it. He might not even know that they bombed Twelve into ash and his family didn't make it out. Only a handful of his friends from school did. I turn my head and find the cameras still beside me. I share a look with Castor, and he seems to somehow understand. With a tap on Pollux's shoulder, they wander away to shoot footage elsewhere.

I take Peeta's hand in mine and catalogue new scars and burn marks that weren't there the night before the Quell. And that's just one hand. Strange, striated burns streak across his temples from his eyes. I feel sick at the thought of what else they've done to him because of me. Of what lurks beneath the tattered clothes and the filth.

"We didn't have a toasting yet," I tell Peeta. He'll understand. Official papers or not, no one in District Twelve feels married until they have a toasting.

"Only a matter of time," he says.

"I thought you were dead. We all did." My voice breaks and I cover my mouth, willing the tears burning up my eyes to stay put.

"Like I said, only a matter of time," Peeta says and extricates his hand from my grasp. He closes his eyes and rolls back over, dismissing me. "Go away, Mockingjay. You probably shouldn't be fraternizing with a traitor."

* * *

I badger first Jackson and then Boggs when she doesn't budge. And when I finally get Haymitch on the phone, I yell until I'm hoarse, demanding that they actually take care of Peeta and not try him as a traitor.

"He saved the life of everyone in District Thirteen, remember?!" I screech. "Remind Coin of that little fact when she hauls out her fucking tribunal! It's not his fault you all left him there to die! You didn't try Annie. You can't try him! They did what they had to do to survive!"

When I finally finish and turn around, Gale is standing there, watching me with his jaw clenched. He walks away without a word.

No matter what I do, I'm hurting someone I care about.

* * *

Only I'm not sure I care about anyone's hurt feelings except my own when Peeta walks into our encampment two weeks later. Still thin and moving like he's in pain, but he's clean and dressed in a gray military uniform of Thirteen with a rifle hanging over his shoulder, Squad 451 stamped on his wrist. The ice a seemingly permanent fixture in his blue eyes until the camera turns its eye to him and he lays on the charm, spinning a story of daring escape in such a way that makes the Capitol seem incompetent and on the verge of failure.

"He's here and not shackled like he should be because he spent a fair amount of time in the President's mansion after the Quell. They think he can help us get to Snow faster. If you ask me, they ought to be stringing him up like they planned," Gale says and Peeta overhears as he walks by.

"I made myself too valuable of an asset for that," Peeta says with a shrug and keeps walking.

"Or he's leading us straight into a trap," Gale mutters. "How else do you explain all three of them escaping like that?"

I shake my head in denial. Peeta wouldn't do that. He wouldn't betray us. But as I watch him flirt with the Leeg twins and the food curdles in my stomach, I can't be sure anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

**NEW WARNINGS:** _Discussions of suicide, canon compliant suicide attempts, canon typical violence. Character deaths (not canon compliant because I don't wanna this time)_

 **A/N:** _This might not be my best work, but I'll be honest, I just wanted to finish it and get it off my plate. Hope it's still a satisfactory ending for you. ANyone following me solely her on may want to consider venturing over to_ _AO3_ _. I will not be posting anything new here since this site gives me all kinds of problems when trying to post and/or respond to reviews. I just don't have the time to devote to two sites anymore if it's gonna be a little beyotch. Xoxo - KDNFB_

* * *

We are nothing more than a distraction.

It becomes clear after a few useless "missions" what our purpose is in the Capitol. We're just shooting more propos. Any street we "take" has already been cleared by the real soldiers. Any pods we clear were left for us on purpose.

On our third day of this, I lose track of the complicated hand signals until Mesalla sighs and Cressida yells "Cut!"

A round of more heavy sighs as everyone relaxes their stance so we can do it again. I'm a disaster. I can't tell if the way they bounce on their feet or can't sit still is due to impatience with me, or because they wish they were actually doing something significant.

"I see she still can't be scripted," Peeta says, examining dirt beneath his nails, his unloaded rifle hanging across his chest. Boggs confiscated the magazine shortly after Peeta joined our squad. No one could decide exactly what to do with him or if we could even trust him. Jackson and the Leeg's argued to trust him, since it was his warning that saved Thirteen. Gale, Boggs, and Mitchell all argued that we couldn't, based on what the doctors at the field hospital said about his mental stability. With such a split decision, Boggs chose to confiscate his ammunition as a compromise.

I didn't remind them that Peeta could still wreak serious damage with just the rifle, even unloaded. Didn't anyone except for me watch his Games? He killed the male tribute from one by smashing a piece of fallen tree limb repeatedly into the boy's head, much like I've seen the soldiers of Thirteen practice doing with their rifles. Granted, it was only after the other tribute had sliced Peeta's arm wide open. That wound turned out miniscule compared to the one that cost him his leg, though.

"What do you need, Katniss?" Cressida tries for patience but I can see that she's about out of it.

"I don't know," I whisper and rub my temple. "Maybe a break?"

"Sure," she agrees and shouts for everyone to sit.

Gale is careful to move as far from me as possible without leaving the area we've cleared. Finnick attempts to talk to Peeta, but all he gets in response is a terse nod and thinned lips. I wonder at the schism there. It's not that Peeta and Finnick were ever best friends, but there was a kind of trust between them that I noticed in the Quell arena. At times, the two of them and Johanna seemed to know what the other was thinking or planning without even speaking. It annoyed me at the time. Now the absence of it confuses me. What did Finnick do to make Peeta stop trusting him?

His coldness towards me at least makes sense in a way. All those nights on the train. The night before the Quell. How close we came to kissing and revealing our secrets beneath that pink sky. And then I went and married Gale anyways.

I set my bow across my lap and watch as Peeta turns away from Finnick and rests one hand on the wall. As Finnick walks towards me, Peeta's fingers curl and his entire body shudders. It only lasts for a second or two and then stops. It's so bizarre, but I have no time to contemplate it as Finnick sits next to me.

"Something's not right with him," I whisper and nod towards Peeta.

"He won't tell me what it is," Finnick says, turning his head so Holmes doesn't hear us speaking.

"Maybe it'd be better if they had killed him."

"You don't mean that," Finnick whispers, spinning his trident between his hands, making a metallic scraping noise that ought to be grating but soothes me in it's rhythmic steadiness. "Whatever's up with him...we can figure it out. We'll get him back."

"Did you get Annie back?" I ask and he huffs.

"Just because we're damaged, doesn't mean we aren't still ourselves. Maybe different. Changed. But still ourselves." I swallow and nod, give him a watery smile that he sort of returns before squeezing my shoulder and standing. How far changed can we get before we're not ourselves, though?

As Finnick walks away, I notice Gale watching me, gray eyes stormy and angry.

Just what I need. For Gale to suspect that I not only love Peeta, but Finnick as well.

Love?

The thought makes me freeze and stare at Gale's boots until he turns away.

* * *

I flip my mockingjay pin over and over in my hands. The bird, the pin. The bird, the pin. The bird-

"Maybe you should be more careful with that. Might lose it."

I stare across the fire at Peeta's eyes. They glitter and glow ominously in the fire. I never thought his eyes could seem so deadly. Several of the soldiers shift in their sleep. I wonder if they're actually asleep or listening. They probably would be listening if it were Gale and I talking. But Peeta's nothing to them. Nothing but a problem.

"Wouldn't be the first thing I value that I've lost," I whisper and Peeta laughs. It's cold and unlike him.

"Right," he sits up slightly and watches Gale sleeping - a few sleeping bags over from his - for a moment before settling back in his sleeping bag. "Looks to me like you haven't lost a thing."

I clench the pin in my hand, the back of it pricks my skin as I glare at him. He has no idea.

"You've changed," I say, making it sound as much like an accusation as I can. Because it is.

"Oh? How so?"

"Like...like they took everything that was good or kind about you and twisted it. Now you're just another one of Snow's mutts.

"No, sweetheart. Just finally acting like a real Victor."

"You never did before. Not with me at least," I whisper and his eyes narrow. I release my grip on the pin and stare at the bird, the flames from the campfire glowing off the golden surface. I see her in his eyes. Not the ones across the fire right now, but the eyes that woke me from nightmares, whispered encouragement before I would take the stage, fought beside me in a jungle where the humidity and certainty of death pressed on my lungs. And then she's gone. Lost once more in the flames. And I am so tired of carrying this all on my own.

"I lost our baby," I whisper the words out loud for the first time.

"So I heard," he says, voice dripping acid.

"No. No you didn't," I say, shaking my head as a tear slips down my cheek and more words pour out. "She...she would have been born in May. I named her Daisy. I dream about her every night. Happy blue eyes. Dancing in a meadow. And then she's gone. The real Girl on Fire. Peeta, I-"

"Enough stories for tonight," he snaps and rolls away from me. He sucks in a sharp breath and his frame goes rigid for a second before his entire body starts shuddering again. I watch until he relaxes. He really is gone then, my Boy with the Bread. I'm not sure what I expected, telling him like this. Pain splinters across my chest and I hyperventilate for a few moments, holding myself together until finally, I turn frozen and numb. And yet, the tears won't stop.

Hours later, Jackson relieves me from my watch. I wipe the tears from my face, grateful that she doesn't say a word. As I move to step over Peeta to reach my sleeping bag, I can't help looking down at him. For just a second, our eyes meet and I gasp.

He's crying. Silent tears from blue eyes that hold no ice. Only pain. The eyes I know and have been waiting for, dreaming of for months. He's drawn a daisy into the dirt, right next to his chest. Just one daisy. Then he closes his eyes and turns away from me, pursing his lips and shaking his head, silently forbidding me to speak to him.

I dive into my sleeping bag and pull it up over my head so no one else sees me crying.

* * *

Haymitch reminds me that I have to play along. My success as the Mockingjay determines the fate of everybody. "She's agreed not to try him for now. But the second you mess up, she will. Do I need to have Boggs implant that chip in your skull?"

I think back to the first time I disobeyed Coin's orders and the methods Haymitch threatened me with to gain compliance. A microchip in my brain. Haymitch in my head twenty-four seven. I shake my head and then tell him no. I'll play along. As long as Peeta's kept safe.

After I hang up, I wonder why I'm still bargaining for his life. Whatever we had that night. Whatever might have been if we'd both made it out of the Quell, is gone. I married Gale, and when this war is over, I'll have to face that.

* * *

Mitchell is showing off his shooting skills when it happens. Laughter in the air as the cameras roll. A bullet ricochets and then hits something hollow. Loud. For a moment, we all stand silent and then an explosion. A scream. Shouting.

When the dust settles, Leeg One is dead. Our radio blown to pieces.

* * *

"We knew there might be unmarked pods," Boggs reminds everyone as they examine the holo projected map of the Capitol. "Sweep teams must have missed that one."

"We should go back."

Everyone stares at Peeta as his body spasms.

"Why the fuck do you keep doing that?" Gale asks and charges towards him.

"Whoa! Whoa!" Finnick says, placing himself between Peeta and Gale. "Back off."

* * *

"They tortured them in the Capitol," Finnick whispers to Boggs. The camp has been moved. And we have no radio to contact anyone to find out where it is. So now we're headed back towards the City Circle, hoping to rendezvous or catch up with another squad.

"How do you know that?"

"Annie."

I spin my Mockingjay pin, round and round in my hands. When we realized the camp was gone, Peeta went bezerk. We had to knock him out with a shot of high dose pain relief to get him under control and even then, his body kept twitching oddly. Twitching and muttering unconsciously to himself, drooling.

"What did they do to him?" I ask and Finnick spins his trident as his eyes meet mine.

"She didn't know for sure. She said they thought maybe it was some kind of electro-shock torture."

"That would explain the burns around his eyes and the twitching," Jackson suggests, pushing aside some of Peeta's hair to look at his face. "His hair always been this shaggy?"

"No," I say and Gale shifts beside me, the fading light casting shadows across his face. "Why did Annie think that?"

"Because every time she heard him screaming, the lights in her cell would flicker."

I dream in screams that night. When I wake up, drenched in sweat, everyone is turned away from me. Except Peeta.

His blue eyes stare at me from across the circle. Warm and concerned. He blinks once and then rolls away from me.

* * *

"It's a bad idea to bring him with us."

"He's not fit to carry out a mission."

"What're we supposed to do? Chain him up somewhere and hope he doesn't die before we can get back for him? Set him loose in the streets?"

"Coin's orders were to take him with us. She thinks showing him on our side will help."

"Help what? We can't get anything we film out right now."

No one has a good answer for that.

"So who wants to babysit him?"

"Or you could just shoot me," Peeta suggests without opening his eyes or lifting his head from where he's sitting, lounging. "Solves everyone's problems."

He shudders. Gale takes one step towards him and I grab his arm to stop him. "Gale. He got us out of that first arena. And what are the odds I'd have made it out of the second one without him?"

I am rewarded for my compassion with two sets of glaring eyes. One gray, one blue. I let go of Gale's arm and find a shelled out building to hide in.

* * *

"You go first. Just in case," Gale says and shoves Peeta forward. He stumbles but goes.

"Sure thing. Wishing you'd shot me right about now, aren't you?"

"Cut it out," Holmes says, following right behind Peeta, tapping his back with the butt of his rifle. The rest of them follow in trail. They've made it halfway down the alley when Mitchell stumbles.

"Shit," he says and the others freeze, on alert as they stare at his foot, planted squarely on a depressed stone.

"A mine?" Boggs asks and Mitchell shakes his head.

"I don't know. But I can't lift my foot without risking blowing you all up.

Before any of us can move away from Mitchell, there's a strange rushing sound.

"Is that...the ocean?" Finnick asks and then he spots something and his eyes widen in terror. "Run."

I follow where he was looking and panic for just a second.

"RUN!" Finnick yells and hands push my shoulder, forcing me into motion. Down the street behind Finnick, away from the massive wall of blackness bearing down on us.

"In here!" Peeta screams from right behind me and yanks open a door, shoving me inside and then motioning for the others to follow. We climb up a marble stairway, up and up as the roaring gets louder. A buzzer sounds and Leeg Two screams as sheets of metal slam shut over the windows. Up and up we climb, tar blasts through the doorway and Mesalla yells as it consumes him.

Up and up, towards the sky, visible through a massive skylight at the top of the stairs. The stench reaches us as the oozing mass creeps slowly up after us. Seeps in through cracks beneath the metal covering the windows. Up and up until our legs ache and there are no more stairs. We collapse in a heap on the landing and listen to the roar of the wave. Watch the stinking mass rise towards us. Gale yanks his boots away as it nears his toes. It bubbles and wavers, laps at the top step, and then slowly retreats, taking the roar with it.

"Roll call," Jackson says, breathing heavily and looking around at their dwindled numbers. "Mesalla?" Cressida shakes her head. "Mitchell?"

"He said he was dead anyways," Holmes mutters.

"We lost Boggs, too," Jackson says. "And the holo with him."

"You," Gale snarls and lunges at Peeta, slamming him into a wall. "You led us into that trap! Now they know where we are and we're stranded here!"

"Stop it!" Finnick yells, struggling to pry Gale off of Peeta, but Gale elbows him in the nose and Finnick's head whips back. My shock wears off and I paw at Gale's arms.

"Then kill me! You want to anyways!" Peeta screams, eyes wild and head thrashing oddly.

"No! Gale stop it!"

"She didn't tell you, did she? Night before the quell, she came to me and we fu-" Peeta's words are cut off with Gale's fist to his throat. He chokes and doubles over, body caught in full, horrific spasms that cut through Gale's rage.

"What the fuck?"

Then it stops. Peeta lays there coughing and panting and holding my hand, crushing it in his grip.

"Katniss. Need to tell you something," he coughs between the weak words. I bend down and his lips tickle my ear as he whispers to me. "Let me go. Kill me now. Before it gets worse."

I jerk my head back and then Finnick is there, a syringe in his hands, shooting some kind of fast acting sedative into Peeta's blood. Peeta's body goes limp and for one second, I see betrayal in his eyes. Then they roll back in his head and his lids shut. Finnick throws aside the used syringe and before anyone can argue, lifts Peeta over his shoulders, almost staggering with the weight.

"We need to move. They'll know where we are," Finnick says. "Cressida? Got any ideas where we can go?"

She turns to Pollux and he nods, motions down the stairs. "That wave will have covered their cameras," Finnick points out.

Down into the streets, across the still steaming rubbery coating left behind. Thankfully, it springs back after each step, concealing our path. At the edge of the wave, we find another set of apartments to hide in.

"Alright. We should be okay here for a bit. See if you can find some food. Sleep in shifts. Be ready to move fast," Jackson orders. "Pollux and Castor with me. We need to figure out a route out of here."

"To the mansion?" Gale asks and Jackson sighs but nods.

"That's where everyone else was headed. It's our best chance of rendezvousing with anyone. This squad's not fit for any kind of mission," she says as she looks around at us. She's probably right. We're now in survival mode.

"Ladies and Gentleman," Finnick mutters and I fill in the rest without even thinking of how it will sound.

"Let the 76th Hunger Games begin."

* * *

We find food and eat. I sit next to Peeta, guarding him from the looks I see in the eyes of the other. It's not just Gale that thinks we should kill him and be done with it. The others are absorbed in planning our escape and consuming as much food as they can, storing up for however long it will be before we can eat again. Without their attention on me, I pull Peeta's hand into my lap and trace several of the new scars. Some of them are almost shaped like flowers and before I realize what I'm doing, I draw a daisy into his scars. Over and over again.

His hand squeezes mine and I stare as he twines our fingers, squeezes again. Three times.

 _I'm sorry._

Somehow I know that's what he's saying and tears slip down my cheek. He brings his other hand up to wipe them away and that's when I see it. A lump beneath the skin on his forearm.

The television flares to life, startling everyone with the blaring anthem. Everything after that happens so fast.

"It's just mandatory programming," Castor explains.

I wave Finnick over to us and show him the lump under Peeta's arm. Peeta struggles against my hold and shakes his head frantically. On the television, President Snow announces the opening of his mansion to refugees.

"What the hell is that?" Finnick mutters and then his eyes go wide as he holds Peeta down. "A tracker?"

That's when Peeta starts screaming and thrashing, drawing everyone's attention. Only for a second. The sound of boots on the roof.

"They found us."

Heavy gunfire. Diving for cover behind couches and walls. Jackson and the others return fire blindly.

"Knife! I need a knife!" I yell, and before I can fumble for mine, Castor hands me his. Pollux and Finnick restrain Peeta. His screams echo across the apartment and tears cloud my vision, but it only takes a few seconds before I've got it in my hands and show the others.

"He was leading us into a trap," Gale accuses.

"More!" Peeta shouts and then his body convulses. "There's more!"

"Hold him down!"

"We can't hold them off! We need to move!"

Gale's eyes meet mine and he purses his lips for a second. And I know he's thinking the same thing as me. If there's more than one tracking device in Peeta's body...they'll know where we go. Unless we kill him now or simply leave him behind.

With a low snarl, Gale grabs Peeta and crawls across the apartment. Plaster flies with each shot. Peeta struggles, but he's weakening. I try to crawl after them, but Finnick grabs my ankle. I watch, helpless as Gale pulls a knife and Peeta screams. Sparks, and then darkness.

In the silence that follows, I can hear everyone breathing. A tap on my shoulder startles me. I move on puppet limbs, following whoever it is to a ladder. Down. Down into more darkness. Eventually my eyes adjust and I'm able to see forms moving around me. I don't know friend from foe. Enemy from lover. Target or ally?

Boots on stone, splashing through water, and eventually, light. We keep moving through the sewers and I watch as Jackson takes a tally, and I do the same. Pollux, Gale with Peeta on his shoulders, Finnick, Cressida. Me. That's it.

* * *

We find four more of them. One behind each of his ears, one in his neck, one in his right leg. I make careful incisions, remove each tracker while Gale holds the cup from his mess kit for me to drop each one in. Finnick hands me supplies to clean, stitch, and bandage each wound I inflict on Peeta's body. He watches me with pain in his blue eyes, biting down on his rifle strap to keep silent. Cressida and Jackson converse in whispers, making a plan while Pollux keeps watch.

"Almost done," I tell Peeta as I drop the last one into the cup. My eyes meet Gale's for just a second before I focus on cleaning this last cut. "What did you do?"

"I electrocuted him."

"What?" I hiss, thinking of what Finnick said about the electroshock therapy, and he sighs.

"Beetee...and Peeta too. When they took those shocks from the forcefield in the Quell, their trackers stopped working."

"So did Peeta's heart," I accuse him and he shakes his head.

"I had to take that risk. We only knew about the weakness in the trackers because Plutarch managed to get us locked on to their frequencies before he bailed. So we were tracking all of you before the rescue. It's how we knew where to fly the hovercraft to get you. Finnick was right there with you, so we used his signal to get you, since Johanna had already cut out your tracker. Beetee was right there next to you, too so we were able to get him by sight as well. But then the shooting started and we couldn't see shit. Not enough to get Peeta. Had to choose. Finnick's tracker was still working, so we got him out. But then…"

"It was too late for me," Peeta croaks and Finnick helps him drink. Gale nods.

"That chip Haymitch threatened you with. It uses the same tracking system. Beetee told me he didn't develop it, but there was a system he was building based off of it for the Capitol before the Quell. Two way communications."

"Meaning?"

"They weren't just following where I was," Peeta explains. "They knew I could get close to you and to Gale, and maybe anyone else in the rebellion that you two were close to. They were feeding me orders I didn't want. They heard every word I said. Every word that was said to me," Peeta explains and he won't meet my eyes as I stare at him. I think of every time he cut me or Finnick off, turned away or tried to stop us. How his body convulsed afterwards.

All this time, he's been trying to protect us. As best as he could.

* * *

We keep moving. This time we stick to the sewers. Gale already dumped the trackers into the water heading the opposite direction, although he's fairly certain they don't work anymore.

"It's still only a matter of time before they figure out which way we went."

During a short break, Pollux quietly weeps for his brother and Gale asks Peeta the first question on all our minds.

"Why not kill yourself? Why keep asking us to do it?"

"I tried. I tried in the hospital after the rebels found me and I found out Johanna and Annie were safe. And that the Capitol had bombed Twelve to ash, but they saw me and stopped me. Labeled me a danger to myself and chained me to my cot. Made sure I was nowhere near anything I could use as a weapon. Wouldn't even give me an IV. Thought I was getting lucky when they handed me a gun and a knife but then Boggs took the ammo and the knife."

* * *

It takes far too long and we get lost several times, but eventually we emerge into the frigid night. While Jackson checks the streets, I stare at the marquee displaying wanted posters, all of our faces in bright lighting. Gale's picture from the first arena. Peeta, Finnick, and mine from the Quell. Our official tribute pictures. Cressida's is a casual shot of her on a set somewhere. Jackson and Pollux's are pulled from a security camera somewhere in the Capitol

They must have found the others' bodies.

We don't speak again until we're hidden away beneath a fur store, the owner of questionable alliance until we tell her that we're going to kill Snow if the rebels don't get him first.

"Why do what they wanted you to do? You could have just ran."

"Thought about it. Every time I tried to kill myself, I was trying to make it look like an accident. Not suicide. They promised safety to my family. Escape right then and immunity at the end of the war for Annie and Johanna. And...leniency for you," Peeta whispers as we search through the canned food Tigris brings us. "I had people I was still trying to protect."

"Peeta," I say brokenly, closing my eyes as tears sting them into blindness.

"I know. Finnick told me about my family. That's when I cut two of them out myself, in between shocks. It's also when I started - I thought Gale would be the best choice. He'd have the greatest reason and the fewest regrets for killing me. I'm sorry if...if I ruined things between you. I just wanted a bullet in my brain. Just wanted it to end."

 _Nobody needs me_ , I hear his words again and bite my lip to stop the tears.

* * *

Tigris dresses us as refugees, disguising our identities. Using the sewers somehow got us in front of the rebels, so now our choices are limited. Sit tight and hope the rebels win without us. Wait here for Coin to catch up with us and try Peeta for the deaths of several of Thirteen's soldiers. Or move forward.

Peeta's reluctant, but eventually agrees to help us get into the mansion. Cressida and Pollux can film. Gale and I shoot Snow. Simple. Easy. And then the Hunger Games will be over.

"You're in love with him," Gale says as he helps me hide my bow beneath the disguise. We're lucky winter has arrived.

"I didn't mean to," I whisper and he nods, tears in his eyes. He leans towards me, and I lift a hand between us. "Don't make it worse than it already is."

He stares at me and nods. "We never toasted, you know?"

"I know."

* * *

It's a fight. A blood bath just to reach the City Circle. We separated to lessen the chances of discovery, but when Peeta and I reach the rendezvous point, there's no sign of the others.

"Now what?" he asks as we cower in the shadows and watch the world explode around us. Shots fired indiscriminately. Civilian, soldier, peacekeeper, rebel. Child. It doesn't matter who you are. Today is a day of death.

Peeta's muttering possible moves under his breath while I debate the wisdom of using my bow in the crowd. The sky ripples and a hovercraft appears, the Capitol seal on its tail. I stare as the doors open and glance down at the children in a holding pen, waiting for entrance. Why make them wait? Silver parachutes descend. Eager hands reach up for them.

For one moment, I'm not in the circle, but in the armory of Thirteen. Gale's voice in my head. Playing by Snow's rules. Thinking like your enemy. All his words about the only way to win.

"Katniss?"

My gaze whips around at the sound of her voice. My lips are just forming her name when the parachutes explode.

Screams and running people. Prim races past us, and it's her shirt, untucked like a duck tail that spurs me into motion, following her. I've just reached her when the rest of the bombs go off.

* * *

I am a fire mutt. If we burn, you burn with us.

Using the double exploding bombs in the City Circle sealed Snow's fate. Anyone left loyal to him turned, unable to abide by the massacre of Capitol children.

But I know the rule book now. It takes a few weeks for the burns on my body to heal enough for me to move. My sister… I spared her the worst of it, but not her hands. The hands of a healer, will take time to heal. May never fully heal.

I sit in the chamber and listen to Coin's explanation. Seething and wondering.

Was it you? Did you do this?

"I put the vote to you. The surviving victors."

Yes then.

A furious argument breaks out.

"Of course we can't!" Peeta insists. He has Beetee, Finnick, and Annie on his side. Agreeing to the practicality of ending the slaughter now, acting with more benevolence than those before us. Whatever their reasoning.

But with Gale, Johanna, and Enobaria in agreement…

"I vote yes. For Prim," I say as I stare at a red rose. One of Snow's roses. The same that adorned the sets of every Victor interview with Gale and I pretending to be madly in love. Eyes flickering towards Peeta's burn scarred hand, distorted through a water glass. "For Rue. And Cassandra."

The girl Peeta sang to sleep in his Games. I hope he understands. For all the moves and countermoves that he plotted for me, the path to survival that he helped me find, he should know. This is just one more move in the Game.

"I'm with the Mockingjay."

I do not acknowledge Haymitch's support, or Gale as we leave. Only Peeta, his eyes furious and confused. I stand on my toes and kiss his lips, uncaring who sees this time. There are no secrets in death.

"Remember what you promised me," I whisper. They'll need it. Peeta's protection. My mother and my sister will need him, I think as I aim at Snow's chest and then lift my arrow, listen to the screams as Coin falls from the balcony.

Dead.

* * *

"Exile suits you," he says as I stand and wipe sweat from my brow. Leave my hammer to continue rebuilding in a moment. I could use a break. He brings a loaf of bread and a weary smile. A promise and a wish.

"So does divorce," I say and Peeta's smile flickers then widens. "Come inside," I invite.

"I need to know one thing first."

"Daisy?" He nods.

"Ours. She was our secret...and my secret wish. I'm sorry, Peeta."

He steps closer and hands me the loaf of bread. I hold it to my chest, the warmth of life seeping through my shirt to my chest. Peeta cups my face in his palms and swipes away the tears. "So am I."

Five years after he returned to me, I wake to the soft cooing across the room and stare at the daisies bursting free of their pot beside me. We'll need to move this one out to the garden soon. But not yet, I think as I swing my gaze over to the rocking chair where Peeta sits, holding our daughter and dropping soft as dew kisses to her brow. The curtains flutter in the breeze and Peeta points out the constellations in the stars.

"A falling star!" he whispers excitedly. "Make a wish, sweet Willow."

Mine already came true, so I leave this one to them.


End file.
